Firstly, it inspired me to try writing short stories again, just by
showcasing the range and versatility of the form, and by demonstrating how
short fiction, in the hands of a virtuoso writer like Ruby Cowling, can say
more than a novel.
These short stories are experimental in the best sense, by
which I mean the varied forms enhance the content and themes. These are in
turn, tragic, funny, uplifting, and poignant, reflecting the multi-faceted world
we live in. Also, the small press, Boiler House has done a wonderful job of
production. This collection is a joy to read!
A family prepares for Assessment. Two brothers haggle over the legacy of their parents. A computer game designer aches with curious longings. Amidst it all, sisters, heroines, rebels, lunar moths and a not insignificant number of rabbits play out their lives under the strange grips of technology, governments, corporations and the capricious planets on which we all, in our different ways, just about manage to live. This Paradise is a rare and beautiful collection of stories about people fleeing towards places or times or situations they hope might be better trying to outrun their nature, to deny the undeniable. Written…
When I’m not out rescuing lost dogs or walking our dog, Beau, in the hills of Sonoma County, I’m reading, writing, blogging, or offering writers' support. Our family started when we took in a baby for foster care, then a year later, after great effort, prayer, and help, we completed her adoption. As for canines, we’ve adopted four dogs, all from dogs returned to their breeders or an animal shelter. Three of our dogs happened to be only one year old when we took them in. I continue to research and edit my Dog Leader Mysteries blog. Twelve years blogging about saving dogs.
Another book of wonders, one I enjoy giving as a gift. I Could Chew on This is full of fun and funny poems about dogs. I gifted it to my ninety-five-year-old friend. It helped her laugh and enjoy life through our shared love of dogs.
Dog lovers will laugh out loud at the quirkiness and unbridled enthusiasm of their canine pals in this hilarious collection of poems by lovable, if sometimes misguided, dogs. In these tongue-in-cheek poems, the author who successfully interpreted the musings of poetic felines in the bestseller I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats now turns his talent to our canine friends who yearn to share their creativity and explain some of their hidden motives. Featuring such titles as 'I Dropped a Ball,' 'I Lose My Mind When You Leave the House,' and 'Can You Smell That' and accompanied…
I absolutely love W.R.'s snarky, intriguing, gripping urban fantasy books. They are like a favorite tea,
delicate yet full of subtle flavor that you keep falling in love with the
more you drink it.
Let me tell you. W.R. does tortured anti-hero SO WELL.
He has lots of class (a nice departure from the usual angst). He fools
himself into thinking he's fine with staying
a tortured anti-hero when he knows deep down he's desperate to get back in the
good graces of the people he loves (which he's afraid to admit he loves because everything he loves always gets ripped away
and murdered). It is full of subtle emotions and tiny flashes of body
language that give you exciting insights into the characters' psyche while also keeping you guessing until the very end.
I loved every minute of it. I cheered and laughed,
groaned, and cried. If you like…
I've always been fascinated by people and the life stories that shape who they are. From a young age, I’ve observed people’s idiosyncrasies closely and as I grew older, I wondered about nature versus nature debate (how much of your personality is innate versus how much life events and familial patterns shape who you become). My background in child protection social work and studies of sociology, psychology and human development have also strengthened my understanding of the theories behind each human emotion. I have almost 20 years of experience working in child protection, and as such, I have a well-rounded understanding of trauma, and the ongoing effects of this throughout the life span.
This is a nail-biting thriller set in rural Australia that centres around the protagonist Jarrod O'Connor, a weary detective who is exhausted due to the harrowing case he is investigating. Three children lose their parents in the most brutal way and the man responsible is more dangerous than O'Connor could ever begin to imagine. The antagonist is presented as a well-rounded character whom the reader gets to psychoanalyse as we consider whether this man was simply born evil, or whether he is an abomination of human nature. From derelict farmhouses to cosy suburbia, the settings are vividly described in each scene. The cast of characters is well defined and the story unravels at just the right pace to keep the reader turning the pages which is a must!
A DEATH PACT AND SHOCKING BETRAYAL. A DELUDED KILLER. A SMALL TOWN DETECTIVE PUSHED TO THE BRINK.
A double homicide. A detective racing against time to protect three innocent lives. A madman hellbent on revenge.
This riveting suspense thriller is set in the rural Australian town of Lockyer. Detective Sergeant Jarrod O'Connor is thrust into the centre of a baffling double homicide case. A couple are gunned down inside their idyllic country homestead in the dead of night. Three children barely escape with their lives and hold the key to breaking the case wide open. In search of a motive,…
I am a creature of habitat. I can’t help but connect with my environment in every possible way. It’s physical, emotional. I spent the first 23 years of my life in Mexico City. Leaving was heart-wrenching, but the promise to fulfill a dream drew me to Los Angeles. During the next four decades I became a student of Los Angeles and the Latino community that populates it. I agree with Randy Newman: I love L.A.
Born in Los Angeles and with profound connection to this city’s psyche, Wendy Ortiz delivers a map of Los Angeles transformed into words, a fragmented memoir of hurt, love, loss, and reinvention. What does a young writer (one of thousands) living in this city and trying to make it worry about? Joblessness. Rent. Bills. Riding the metro. Alcohol. And yes, sex and publishing too, of course. This book proves that it’s not always 72 and sunny in Los Angeles.
Hollywood Notebook is a prose poem-ish memoir of fragments. Ortiz takes us through the streets of Los Angeles and the internal maps she's charting as she moves from her twenties to her thirties in a studio apartment in Hollywood. A cartography of love, loss, and transformation, Hollywood Notebook is a portrait of the author's psyche overlaid on a map of the city she makes her home.
Guy Beiner specializes in the history of social remembering in the late modern era. An interest in Irish folklore and oral traditions as historical sources led him to explore folk memory, which in turn aroused an interest in forgetting. He examines the many ways in which communities recall their past, as well as how they struggle with the urge to supress troublesome memories of discomfiting episodes.
A fascinating collection of miscellanea, which constitute ‘a thought experiment seeking out places where forgetting is more useful than memory’. Thoroughly entertaining and full of eye-opening anecdotes.
We live in a culture that prizes memory - how much we can store, the quality of what's preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our life while fighting off the nightmare of losing all that we have experienced. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear, but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and forgiveness?
A Primer for Forgetting is a remarkable experiment in scholarship, autobiography and social criticism. It forges a new vision of forgetfulness by assembling fragments of art and writing from the ancient world to…
I've always been fascinated by people and the life stories that shape who they are. From a young age, I’ve observed people’s idiosyncrasies closely and as I grew older, I wondered about nature versus nature debate (how much of your personality is innate versus how much life events and familial patterns shape who you become). My background in child protection social work and studies of sociology, psychology and human development have also strengthened my understanding of the theories behind each human emotion. I have almost 20 years of experience working in child protection, and as such, I have a well-rounded understanding of trauma, and the ongoing effects of this throughout the life span.
Rapid Eye Movement is an intense and enlightening read. The descriptive prose and carefully constructed characters stand out throughout. Jennifer and Ilan are running for their lives in Cyprus, where a car accident leaves Jennifer with a head wound. The reader is introduced to Lucy who stumbles down a rabbit hole and suffers a head injury that leaves her in a coma. The story moves on to a series of dream sequences where the two women somehow become connected. The reader becomes hooked on the intensity of their lucid dreams and becomes curious about the mystery surrounding this. Sheridan expertly weaves backwards and forwards in a seamless manner, adding depth to the story. The intensity builds as the finale approaches which creates just enough tension between the two main characters to make the book 'unputdownable'.
When Jennifer Scott and Lucy Wilson were injured in accidents near their respective homes in Cyprus and England, they had no inkling of the connection that was formed when their consciousnesses collided and linked them together within their dreams.Both are ordinary women. Living their lives. They have never met. Yet when Jennifer goes to sleep each night, she finds herself dreaming how Lucy came to be the woman she is today. She learns of the dream house Lucy found in the Yorkshire Dales, the two daughters she adores and her happy, but ordinary, life with her husband, Charlie.When Lucy’s head…
I am a psychotherapist, with a private practice, and the author of several books. Like me, Yalom is a psychotherapist as well as an author, and the best of his writing takes place in that heightened zone where emotions seem to crackle because two people are sustaining an authentic contact, actually being “there” with one another – like the very best, life-changing moments in psychotherapy. I dreamt last night about Irvin Yalom. So yeah, Yalom can get into your head, in a good way.
I love Yalom's books of what might, in lesser hands, be termed “case studies.” I say that because Yalom is constantly writing about his work with his patients, but they never feel like a “case study” - something plodding and formulaic and one-sided. In Yalom's hands the case studies are never mere discussions of the pathologies of his patient, but rise into a magical interplay between two equals, two human beings yearning for a way to connect and heal through authentic presence, honesty, and love. If there is “classic Yalom” it is probably these books. Creatures of a Day and Loves Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy are superb as well, and frankly, I tend to think of them all as parts of a whole, one big book of Yalom's shorter pieces in which he explores his work one-on-one with the hurting human beings who show up at his door.
Using the medium of six case studies, Dr Irvin Yalom reveals the intricacies of pyschological landscapes and the unique dynamics of clients and therapists.
Hi, I’m Neil. We need to live our tiny, precious lives with intention. I write about failure, resilience, happiness, trust, and gratitude. I’m the New York Times bestselling author of 10 books and journals that have sold over 2,000,000 copies and spent over 200 weeks on bestseller lists, including The Happiness Equation, Two-Minute Mornings, and You Are Awesome. I host the award-winning, ad-free, sponsor-free podcast 3 Books, where I’m on a 22-year quest to uncover the 1000 most formative books in the world. Guests include Brené Brown, Quentin Tarantino, and David Sedaris. I give over 50 keynote speeches a year at places like Harvard, SXSW, and Microsoft.
I needed and loved this book, which showed me how to be "alone and happy" rather than "alone and sad." Both halves of my brain were scratched because Michael’s a captivating writer with an arty flick-of-the-wrist style who also knows how to navigate the world of research and science.
Harris peels back the layers of this incredibly subtle life skill to show us why it’s crucial to master, what gets in the way, and how we can reorient ourselves in the distraction machine.
'An elegant, thoughtful book . . . beautifully expresses the importance and experience of liberation from the battery-hen life of constant connection and crowds.' Daily Mail
'A compelling study of the subtle ways in which modern life and technologies have transformed our behaviour and sense of self.' Times Literary Supplement
In a world of social media and smartphones, true solitude has become increasingly hard to find. In this timely and important book, award-winning writer Michael Harris reveals why our hyper-connected society makes time alone more crucial than ever. He delves into the latest neuroscience to examine the way innovations like…
Living through the Iraq War compelled me to honestly challenge who I was, what I had believed in, and reshape who I am. One aspect to emerge from that is the belief that there is no good war. War is the worst of all endeavors, born from fundamentally weak minds that are blind to imagination and vision. But while I have had a passion for writing about war and speaking out against it, I feel it’s important for people to look beyond my work as just another veteran writing just another war book. In both of my books, the war is a character more than anything else.
While admittedly not a “war” book, Jack London’s masterful novel illustrates notions associated with war and society in an artful way. And he does it within two characters… a truth seeker and a believer in the establishment. From the rich and powerful to the impoverished with no voice, he clearly understood what is behind the masks we don in society. Fantastic read.
The semiautobiographical Martin Eden is the most vital and original character Jack London ever created. Set in San Francisco, this is the story of Martin Eden, an impoverished seaman who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame. London, dissatisfied with the rewards of his own success, intended Martin Eden as an attack on individualism and a criticism of ambition; however, much of its status as a classic has been conferred by admirers of its ambitious protagonist. Andrew Sinclair's wide-ranging introduction discusses the conflict between London's support of socialism and his powerful self-will. Sinclair also explores the parallels…
